Saturday, October 31, 2009

Someone very, very close to me had a very, very tough week this week. And I can't help thinking that this is how she felt. Hugh's cartoons have a way of just finding me at the right moment with the right message and this one came very close to home because I know it is exactly how someone felt about so many things in her life this week. Probably exactly like this. -?- Now I doubt that Hugh was depressed when he wrote this but he's captured the essence of how a person could feel if everything they did seemed to not work, if even the best of intentions and actions seemed not to be appreciated, if - well, the world seemed not to matter. It would feel like failure. -?- And I know a bit about feeling like a failure these days as well. Imagine knowing a day when you were at the top of your game, when you were not only sought after but rewarded and moved up the ladder and then boom - it all went away - through no fault of one's own, and nothing you could do could change the way God was going to play things out. I know this feeling. And I feel I know depression as well. And so today I write. - ? - In days past I would have thrown myself into work. At university on the leaving of a girlfriend I hit the hitchhiking road and found myself on the beach in Ft. Lauderdale a few days later. That worked. Later, fired from a job and having a wheel spin off of my car on the freeway, I borrowed a hundred bucks from my buddy, ate some shit and got myself a job at the best agency in town. That worked. For my midlife crisis act I simply started my own company - And that worked. Inside of two years we were back in the New York Art Directors show and winning major multinational business. -?- And if Hugh were ever depressed I could make a very educated guess as to what he would have been doing. He would have been doing cartoons. And that has worked extremely well for him. - ?- The common denominator I have seen between people who may have had a hard time in life but have no intension of ever giving up is to also have something else - something that no one else can touch. A companion. Passion. Compassion. Love. Love of God or love of oneself - maybe love of oneself needs to come first. A project. A job. Or maybe just a hobby. In any case it needs to be something that you and you alone own and determine for yourself the terms of success. That no one can ever take away from you. After that, the rest of the world becomes a whole lot more bearable. Because the rest of the world doesn't matter didly-shit. What matters is that you are who you are and you do what you do on your own terms. -?- Recently I've had someone tell me that trying to publish my book was a waste of time, and that the time I spend on my blog is worthless because it doesn't bring me any immediate income. But what that person failed to realize is that both of those things, no matter how futile, give me hope. And if I want to be the only lunatic in the world who believes in them, then that's my business. My business alone. And that's hope enough. - ?- But the other thing I've come to realize this year is that hope comes in people - and when you find those people, those people who believe in you when the rest of the world seems lost - you need to keep them and hold them close, then hold them closer and closer. Because only people can make our lives meaningful - and that makes the failures of everyday existance more than bearable. It makes them worthwhile. It makes them even successful.

And that's quite the big deal. Just this last week the Wild Wild East Dailies was selected for inclusion by Trakkrz.com. Trakkrz boasts being “the world’s largest hand-picked blog site on the web.” and when they say "hand-picked" that means that somebody actually reads it and evaluates your writing before you are approved. And considering the eclectic nature of WWED, I was more than pleased to be included in the "Life" category on Trakkrz. That category alone features fewer than 100 blogs so that puts us in some pretty exclusive company. Other blogs included on Trakkrz are Seth Godin's and my friend Hugh MacLeod's Gapingvoid.com.

In order to be selected, your blog must meet the following criteria:consistent, regular stream of articles * written primarily about the topic for which you are chosen for * write original, relevant articles that provide a unique view – you are not a news aggregator, not an automated blog scraping website – rather a live blogger with excellent content * you are an individual or a small group writing together.

And so I'm happy. This thing is going somewhere. And not knowing exactly just where is all part of the fun.

Additionally this week Technorati revised their blog rating system and we recieved a more than pleasant surprise. The Wild Wild East Dailies has risen in Authority ranking from 4 to 103 and our blog relativity to the Technorati Top 100 has grown to 78.000 from a previous high of 350,000. Most of this is due to Technorati's cleaning of the system and a more accurate verification of real blogs vs. scam blogs. Thanks Technorati and Trakkrz I'll just keep writing.

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Those wings are yours. And powerful. And full of good meaning. The sun melted some, but you came down in time to not fall. To not fall completely. Injured? A bit. But not damaged beyond repair. Oh how I could have wished those wings were for me. But they were not. They were for you. Only you who didn't know. And now you do. Finally I heard it from your own mouth. Listen to yourself, you can hear it too.

Sunday, October 18, 2009

Ahh, Bavaria. Home to the Bavarian Motor Works, VladmirLenin and Adolph Hitler, and the Beer Hall Putsch - most of what's left are the Beemers and of course Oktoberfest - then there's been Mozart, Wagner, Mahler, Strauss, Lou Bega and Freddie Mercury, all whom called München (Munich) home along with painters Paul Klee and Wassily Kandinsky, but certainly not all at the same time. What a city that would have been - "Poker with Hitler, Kandinsky and Mercury on Thursday, Becky - pencil me in". "Yes, I know Adolf's a little sweet on Freddie but I'll talk him out of it. Don't worry." But today, post Oktoberfest, things seem a good bit more quiet - now that the six million tourists are gone and the Süddeutsche Zeitung has stopped speculating on terrorist activity at the festivities, things can seem just down right suburban and considering that we're living in Germany's richest city, with the country's lowest unemployment rate, that can be positively sobering in our comparitively eastern European neighborhood of decidedly suburban apartments. The picture you see above is in Marienplatz, the city center, so no - that's not our house. I'll get to that a few posts later.

But just last week I started working, some very small consulting jobs when I saw a meticulously maintained red, 67 Aston Martin and realized that I was still a long way from enjoying the best of what this city has to offer. But that's ok. At least I'm here - and for those of you who've followed our tour through Frankfurt, Paris and Mali, that's enough to know that we've landed on our feet and are ready to rock München.

My conspicuous sparcity of posts will now end and we'll get on with a whole week of "Nothing much happened" posts, because, well, nothing much HAS happened - but let's start with the big news...our sidewalk. Oh, no. That's too big a story. It could take me days to explain how one of the wealthiest cities in the world replaces a sidewalk - or why? Later. So give me some time, patient readers - while I dig into the last few weeks and come up with the best dirt I can - like why German grocery stores just kick the living shit out of anything in America - but not France. Or the machines they have at the grocery stores that spin your returned glass and plastic bottles around as lasers scan them and then spit out a reciept with your refund money - or the power flushing device on my toilet that sprays the hell out of the inside but I still have to use a spot of t-paper on the stubborn spots - or the eastern European rock I've been listening to - or, later ... just later. I promise...

Nothing much happened in Munich today, except she lost her point.

Lyrics here from Death Cab For Cutie.

How I wish you could see the potential,the potential of you and me.It's like a book elegantly bound but,in a language that you can't read.Just yet.

You gotta spend some time, Love.You gotta spend some time with me.And I know that you'll find, loveI will possess your heart.You gotta spend some time, Love.You gotta spend some time with me.And I know that you'll find, loveI will possess your heart.

But all that said, it seems a bit lacking in spirit, wit and attitude, so please reference the cartoon on the left. That says, what I would very many times like to say, but can't. The cartoon comes from my friend, Hugh MacLeod, for Shitcreekconsulting.com and sums up - in one tiny picture and line - just what I'd like to say to all those clients who are more impressed with an agency's big logo than with the ideas and the people behind them, themselves. And let me tell you, I know plenty about the big boys, because I've worked with them, even been one of them, and seen them muck up quite a few accounts, without my help, on any number of clients - like the time Leo Burnett had Hallmark, United Airlines, Miller Beer, McDonald's and Sony, all in review at the same time. They managed to save one of those clients. But being one of the big boys is not always so bad - not if you're in a position to truly make a difference and have a client who wants to make a difference as well. I'll take the 4 years I worked with American Airlines and put a commercial on the Super Bowl (The world's most expensive media event) and tell you that spending a million bucks in production plus a few mil more for airtime isn't a half bad way to make a living. (Make sure to PAUSE the podcast in the sidebar before playing the videos so the soundtracks won't conflict.)

but I'll also tell you that spending all of $10 to make a series of Sony commercials that used no pictures at all, to promote their music products, was just as much fun, and probably twice as effective. It's all about the ideas.

And so in today's new media environment I'm much happier to know that a good idea that spreads is worth far more than any old idea that's being paid to be spread, and I now spend a whole lot more time urging my clients how much money they should not be spending as opposed to how much more they could be spending. It's all in the power of the ideas. For those who don't know me yet, or couldn't be bothered with the document above, it's enough to say that I've kissed enough butt to know what the big boys want and how they do what they do, but also kicked enough butt - from inside the system, to know how to work beyond and around the tried and true, towards ideas that are more trying and truthful. For those with a digital Jonze you can find me at the following: Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and of course check out my other YouTube videos. I hope to meet many new faces in the coming days and will be happy to be digitally yours, as well as personally yours. Cheers.David

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